Playing Nice
by cassierules
Summary: Hetty has her reasons for easing up on the team.


Playing Nice

Summary: Hetty's being nice....what has the world come to? Possibly funny-ish.

It had all started with Callen. He'd come into the office (if the garish décor of the OSP's lobby warranted the term "office") on the dot at 730 hours, swinging the NCIS-themed (as in logo-screened, symbols on the zipper) laptop case that Hetty had dropped in his mailbox, his hardly-used Netbook bouncing inside. He set his things on the table, sighing as he leaned on the back legs of a vintage chair begging for an Antiques Roadshow appearance. Or at least a spot on the Ghost Whisperer show. _I'm not even gonna think about that. _

Callen waited for the computer to boot up, nearly hypnotized by the blinking "Loading" bar. With all the cutting-edge tech Hetty freely stuffed into the hands of her agents for an assignment, you'd have thought she could have offered him a refurbished Mac or something better than the outdated Windows crap that he'd picked up at Future Shop's inventory clearout sale. But no, Hetty had denied his offer flat out, with a rambling commentary on the state of the world's economy while shoving some brand new "you can keep it" thing at Kensi.

"Yeah, go play Favorites.", Callen had muttered, earning a swift slug to the shoulder from Sam.

"Do you wanna be in cargo for the next flight to Siberia, G?", his partner had muttered.

Callen had always found it kind of cute that Sam, the tough old SEAL, was terrified of a woman who didn't even measure up to his collar. Fear of Macy, he could have understood, but Hetty? Okay, yeah, she scared him too, but it wasn't one of those things you went around telling everyone!

"Mr. Callen?", Hetty suddenly appeared behind him, her face close enough to his for him to smell the nauseating mix of AquaFresh and perfume.

"Uh...! Morning, Hetty. I was just, uh, waiting for it.", he threw a sideways glance at the computer, wishing it could make the floor swallow him up. Hetty was a piece of cake with Sam and Kensi, even Dom or Eric by his side, but alone? This early? Not so much.

"Well you needn't be waiting for much longer! What are you doing with this piece of prehistoric garbage anyways? Honestly, I will never understand you people, with you're minimalist complexes...", she huffed, reaching into a purse that Callen could guess weighed as much as she did and was at least twice as thick. She pulled a thin white box from what Kensi jokingly called "the abyss", and placed it on the table beside Callen's laptop, which now had a password screen on the display. "The latest Mac model, owner's manual is taped to the inside of the box. Now, turn it on, for God's Sake! We've switched to a new courier service and I've yet to see if anything arrived damaged."

Callen stifled his awe and did as Hetty said, trying to distract himself from the fact it wasn't Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, a briefing or Swine Flu Prevention Day and Hetty had just given him some goodies. Of course, that probably meant it was coming out of his public servant's paycheck, and yet.

He cleared his throat.

"Thank Yo-"

"Oh, no need, Mr. Callen! I can't have my agents running with the dinosaurs, can I now? Besides, with the caseload around here lately, you little _muskrats _deserve it. Yes...hmm. Ah, and Mr. Callen, would you please inform your team they have the night off? Thank You." With that, Hetty's boots were clicking down the hall.

"Why'd you just slap yourself, G? Giving in to the feminine side of your personality?", Sam chuckled, tossing his bag over one of the chairs. He'd come in just in time to see the door to Hetty's office close, a cause for relief and celebration. Callen Grunted noncommittally.

"Well if he is, I would find it a major cause for concern.", Nate offered in his usual serious tone, snapping Callen out of the daze their pint-sized boss had left him in.

"Aw, shut up, Nate. You're only grumpy because there was a Medical Examiner's Conference in Venice last night.", Callen shot back, earning a chuckle from Sam and a grumbled string of curses from Nate as he climbed up the stairs to the tech-ops room to drown his sorrows with Eric.

"Morning, _Ladies_.", Kensi greeted the team with her signature grin, setting her things down beside Sam's. "Gonna give me back that sweater with the cats on it, Sam?" Callen laughed right out loud.

"Okay. Okay. Enough. We have a serious problem on our hands, you guys.", he said in a low, conspiratorial voice, motioning towards the computer. Sam faked shock.

"Yeah, G, you stay up too late. And watch too much TV."

Kensi giggled. "Just so you know, I am not gonna wear a shrunken, see-through tank top and bend over the hood of a car if our next assignment is to remake _Transformers._"

"Seriously, Kensi! Okay, you know how I've been asking Hetty for a new laptop?"

"I remember you promised to kiss a giraffe if she got you one.", Sam interrupted.

Callen ignored him. "This morning, she shows up and gives me a Mac. Then she goes and says we've got the day off."

"SHE SAID WHAT?', his teammates exclaimed in unison. Hetty giving them an _hour _off was rare enough, but a day?

"I'm gonna get Eric to check the weather.", Sam said soberly. "I think it might snow on the way home."

"-but then she says 'Dominic, you're one of the most upstanding young agents I've had the pleasure of meeting.', and tells Sam to loosen up on me. Crazy or what?", Dom explained between bites of his vending-machine bought sandwich.

"Please, bro. She gave a surfboard.", Eric told him, sucking up the last dregs of his blood-colored Gatorade.

"A surfboard?"

"Yeah, I mean, my other one's okay, but she just came upstairs with this carbon fiber masterpiece. The paint job's just rad, man!"

Their eyes met across the beach-themed lunchroom's wide table.

"Something's wrong.", Dom immediately said.

"Smells like a bad swell, bro.", Eric agreed.

Kensi stepped in front of one of the office's many mirrors, checking her shirt for flecks of ink or crumbs. She adjusted the gold barrette in her wild hair and nodded, satisfied with her reflection.

"A moment, dear.", Hetty said from behind her. _Busted,_ Kensi thought. She turned to face the OSP's tiny dictator.

"Hi, Hetty. I just had a moment, so I-"

"Please. Contrary to popular philosophy, appearances _do_ matter. Not that you need to worry of course. Those jeans look wonderful. Whoever makes it?", Hetty asked, grabbing at Kensi's thigh. Kensi coughed. Usually, Hetty's comments about her clothes included "Are you moonlighting as a traffic sign? You'll blind people wearing that!" and "Is this a high school? Those pants could cut off circulation to your legs. It's messy, as deaths go."

"Um.", Kensi wasn't just lost on the designer, she was lost period.

"Anyway, I thought I could use your opinion on something." Hetty withdrew two hangers from behind her, and held them up to Kensi's eyes. "Come on, do pick one before I grow old and die, here." On one of the hangers was a clean white shirt and dark brown slacks, along with a playfully cut green sweater, while on the other were dark-washed jeans and a red shirt with a plunging neckline even Kensi thought was excessive, with a bright blue leather jacket over it. Just looking, she could tell the clothes would be too small for her. _Oh, well._

"Um, I don't think I'd fit into them.", she muttered with a shrug.

"I didn't ask about you, I asked you to pick which one of these outfits is more appealing."

"Right.", Kensi nodded, pointing towards the red shirt combo."

Hetty considered the choice and ran a hand over the fabric. "Hm...good choice. Tasteful. I wouldn't have expected anything else from you, Ms. Blye. Keep up the good work, you understand?", she told Kensi. Kensi just nodded, feeling dizzy as the time she'd banged her head on Sam's car door.

"It makes no sense, Nate!", Kensi shouted. She was sprawled out on Nate's old, worn couch, munching on a bag of Cheetos. "First she gives Callen a computer, we get the day off, she tells Sam to loosen up on Dom, and gives Eric some 'epic' surfboard! Then she compliments me! Hetty!"

The corners of Nate's mouth twitched up with a rare glee. If only Kensi could see how worked up she was.

"It doesn't add up, Nate! I mean, what if the water's been contaminated? We drink the stuff too!"

"I don't.", Nate chuckled, holding up a bottle of lemon flavored water. "You see, Kensi, it's not that it doesn't add up, it's that you've got the wrong numbers."

"Yeah, let's all be cryptic now."

Nate sighed. "So Hetty's being nice, right?" Kensi nodded.

"You were nice the day before that guy took you to see Whip It. Dom was nice when Cynthia downstairs asked him out to dinner."

"And you were nice when you and the ME got a hour free last Saturday...", Kensi nodded along, suddenly realizing where this was going. No wonder the clothes had been to small! Oh...wait...

"I TOLD HETTY TO WEAR A SHIRT THAT PRACTICALLY GOES DOWN TO HER CROTCH TO A DATE?!", she exclaimed. "She'll put my head on a platter...", Kensi added weakly.

Nate clapped her on the shoulder with a smile, leading her out of his office. "See, you just gotta enjoy it while it lasts.", he told her. They came down the stairs slowly, giving Kensi just enough time to adjust to her fate.

"Was Hetty just humming the Justin Bieber song?", Sam muttered to G as the walked past their boss in the hallway.

"The what?"

"You know, that song that goes me plus you? She was just humming it, I swear."

"It's disturbing that you that, Sam."


End file.
